Snyder said he already has a candidate in mind for the emergency manager position, but declined to release details about that person.

A week ago, a state-appointed review team determined that Detroit is in a financial emergency, and Snyder had been mulling whether to appoint someone to confront the city's $327 million budget deficit and $14 billion long-term debt.

The state takeover is short of a formal bankruptcy, but the emergency manager who would have many of the same powers as bankruptcy judge to throw out contracts with public employee unions and vendors that the city can not afford.

The state review board issued a report saying the city faces a cash shortfall of more than $100 million by June 30, and that long-term liabilities, including unfunded pension liabilities, exceeded $14 billion. Detroit has been borrowing to continue operations and would have fallen about nearly $1 billion short last year if it hadn't issued new debt.

The review team stated that while the mayor and city council deserve credit for some difficult financial reforms, "those reforms are too heavily weighted toward one-time savings and apply only to non-union employees who represent only a small portion of the city's overall wage and benefit burden."

The review team therefore found that an emergency exists in the city "because no satisfactory plan exists to resolve a serious financial problem."